


Marked

by The_Last_Kenobi



Series: Whumptober 2020 [14]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Branding, Burning, Gen, Graphic Violence, Torture, Whump, Whumptober 2020, references to slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:00:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27002374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Last_Kenobi/pseuds/The_Last_Kenobi
Summary: Anakin Skywalker had seen branded slaves during his childhood on Tatooine. He swore to himself that he would never let anyone mark him like that, like chattle.Someone else decides to get in the way of his promise.Written for Whumptober 2020Day 14 - Branding
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Series: Whumptober 2020 [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956463
Comments: 6
Kudos: 108





	Marked

Anakin can smell flesh burning.

More pressingly, he can _feel_ it burning—it’s _him_ , he’s burning, and if it weren’t for the gloved hand crushing down over his lips, he would be screaming loud enough to shake the roof.

But it’s not the pain that is making his throat burn with muffled screaming, or his eyes stream with tears.

It’s the _shape_ of the burn that is appearing on his chest as Asajj Ventress holds him in place, a gleeful smile on her pale face.

It’s the knowledge that she is _branding_ him, so deep and so dark that not even bacta will save him now.

He escaped branding for nine years on Tatooine—he had been a slave, but he had been spared a permanent mark. He had seen slaves risking life and limb to avoid the marks. He had seen those already branded, the permanent cloud of shame that seemed to bear them down.

Slavery could be escaped—rarely, but it could.

A brand was a declaration that you were owned, were _humiliated_ , were either falsely cherished or cruelly kept by a master with a fondness for their own image. A brand could only be removed with pain and desperation.

And it left a scar that was almost as much a stamp of ownership and dread as the brand itself—

Anakin’s flesh burns and blisters, carving a Sith crest Asajj wore around her neck into him forever.

His arms and legs are bound with cuffs, and he can barely breathe past the hand that is keeping him silent.

Anakin isn’t screaming in any way he has ever screamed before.

Even with broken bones, electrocution, torture, unexpected falls, burns, near-drownings, and nightmarish visions of the future—it’s not the same.

When Asajj finally lifts her hand, Anakin Skywalker has a Sith mark branded deep into the center of his chest, and Anakin continues to scream on and on and on and on and on, a raw and terrible wail.

* * *

Ahsoka and Obi-Wan find him a million years later.

(Two days later.)

The brand is angry red and infected around the edges, wholly irremovable, and he’s still trying to scream, silenced now only by having torn his throat completely raw.

Ahsoka takes his hand. Anakin does not react.

Obi-Wan kisses his forehead. Anakin watches, and angry, hurting tears leak from his eyes. 

He hears them talking, his Padawan and his Master - not his master, not like that, not ever like that ever ever please no - 

And then they do the only kind thing there is to be done just then.

Ahsoka frees his limbs and presses his saber into his hand, letting him curl his fingers around it. Find his own strength.

Obi-Wan covers him with robes, kisses his brow one more time, and whispers, "Knight." 

And even with the burn - the brand - even with his limbs falling underneath him so that his friends have to hold him up, even with his lightsaber shaking in his nerveless fingers, even half-dressed in borrowed robes, they remind him that it's true.

Anakin Skywalker is free. A Jedi Knight.

He will not be possessed. 

* * *

(Anakin Skywalker is a thrall. A Sith Apprentice.)

(He bows at the Emperor's feet, trapped in a suit that holds his limbs together and breathes for him, and even after Mustafar there is still a brand on his chest, hidden under wires.)


End file.
